1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to cross language applications in an Internet based environment and more particularly to a method and system for providing cross language advertising service over the Internet.
2. Description of Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,101 disclosed a system for cross-language search. The system dialectally standardizes the keyword or query input by the user to a more commonly known or used term. Dialectal standardization is helpful because standardizing the word to a commonly known word insures that the search engine of the target language will recognize it.
The patent also disclosed a method and system that translates intelligently the standardized keyword or query input by the user in a source language into the target language. It also provided an option to the users to have the search results retrieved in the target language to be translated back into the source language.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/449,740 discloses a method for dialectally standardizing a query input by the user in the source language and then translating the standardized keyword to the target language and searching and retrieving web documents in the target language as well as providing translations of the search results into the source language.
In the method, the user first inputs a query in the source language through an input device such as a keyboard. The query is then processed by a server at the backend to extract content word from the input query. The next step takes place at a dialectal controller, which performs the function of dialectally standardizing the content word extracted from the input query. This insures that the keyword is standardized to a commonly known word or term. At this stage, the user may be prompted for some more input so as to refine the search or to perform dialectal standardization where the initial input phrase by the user was insufficient to perform dialectal standardization.
Thereafter, the dialectally standardized word is inputted into a translator to translate the dialectally standardized word into the target language. This process of translation that takes place prior to a search is known as pre-search engine translation. Following the translation, the translated word is input into a search engine in the target language. Such an input yields search results in the target language that satisfy one or more search criteria. The search results so obtained are then displayed in the form of site names (URL) on the user's screen.
Once the search results are made available to the user, the user has a set of available options. The user may either browse the search results in the target language or request that the search results obtained in the target language be translated into the source language. The user may further specify whether the entire search results or just portions of it need to be translated. This can be done by merely highlighting the portions of the search results desired to be translated and then entering the appropriate command. The user may also specify as to what kind of a translation is required by the user depending on her needs, i.e., whether a simple machine translation with reading aids will be sufficient or a more intelligible translation of the search results and the contents of those web sites is desired.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/529,087 discloses a bilingual linguistic annotation calibration engine (LACE) comprising a system and method for automatically returning a user from a web server an artificial intelligence based bilingual annotation, displayed in a callout or bubble, on a segment of textual information, such as a phrase, a keyword, or a sentence, contained in a segment of text adjacent to or overlaid by the user's mouse pointer while the user is viewing an electronic document on the computer screen.
The LACE system returns in real-time to the user from a backend server a bilingual annotation message, contained in a callout associated with the user's mouse pointer, on a segment of textual information while the user, who is reading a web page displayed on the computer screen, moves the mouse pointer over, or points the mouse pointer to, a segment of text containing the segment of textual information.
This LACE system involves a software application which runs on the backend server of the web site and operates to perform the steps such as: screen-scraping a segment of text adjacent to, or overlaid by, the user's mouse pointer, the segment of text being included in a web page in an object language; sending the screen-scraped segment of text to the backend server hosting the web page; calibrating the screen-scraped segment of text into a query; translating the query into a subject language; returning the user's computer the data required for displaying the query and its translation (even other reading aid information) in a callout closely associated with the user's mouse pointer; and displaying the callout according to a signal sent from the server.
It is desired that while the user is performing a cross language search or while he is requesting a real-time annotation or translation through LACE system, the server which supports the cross language search or the LACE system, or a third party server, will return to the user one or more advertisements relevant to his input.